Traditions  Old and New
by FourSilverArrows
Summary: It's St. Patrick's Day and Ezra has a meeting in a bar.  Nathan, Josiah and the gang aren't far behind.


Edited on August 14, 2007.

Universe: ATF

Disclaimer: I don't own, not making any money.

Challenge: St. Patrick's Day celebration

Comments: Don't know where this came from. I did change an Ezra related item from Mog's great ATF AU.

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He was miserable.

In the midst of a bar full of drinking and celebrating people, he felt sick and sullen.

"Hey, buddy, what will you have?" asked the bluff looking man behind the dark wood bar. The man looked like he just stepped out of an ad for a St. Patrick's Day Parade with a plastic molded green bowler hat on his head and a huge 'Kiss Me, I'm Irish' button on his neon yellow and green t-shirt.

Ezra Standish shivered and pressed his left arm into his side to settle the pain. "The closest bottle of whiskey you can set your hands upon, my friend. And two glasses." He shakily pulled out a few bills and placed them on the bar.

The ATF undercover agent would have done without the glass and just swigged straight from the bottle, but he didn't think his hurting body would forgive the excess movement. If there were ever a time for a man such as himself to swig . . . now would be that time.

The items thudded in front of him on the bar in exchange for the money. Change clattered on the wood a second later. "Hey, you don't look so good. You hit a few bars before you get here?" asked the bartender.

"No . . . just had a bit of bad luck yesterday," murmured Ezra as he reached out with his right hand to tip the already open bottle to almost fill the shot glass. "Had a run-in with a Neanderthal."

The man didn't look convinced, but drifted off to serve green beer to a group of men and women who had temporary tattoos of shamrocks on various parts of their bodies.

A slow minute passed and then a figure sat on the barstool next to him. The man grabbed the second shot glass and poured some whiskey. "You don't look so good, Ezra."

Ezra snorted, full knowing how he looked. His hair was wet with sweat, his face was pale and his eyes rimmed in red. Moreover, he had a damnable shake in his very core that he couldn't get rid of soon enough.

"Where's your mother this year?" asked the man with the reddish brown hair and hazel eyes as he slammed back his first drink. It was partly due to the fact he was thirsty for the burn, and partly to help him through this meeting.

"London," Ezra replied with a rasp as he gulped another shot. "Or it could be Toronto. I've had cause to loose contact with her these past few days."

"Ah. So you're alone this year," replied the man in a wary tone. He knew what a lonely Ezra could be like.

"Just like last year," was the sharp rejoinder. Ezra scowled at his glass for a moment and then cocked his head. "But not exactly."

The man frowned, not knowing what Ezra meant by that last bit. "I'm sorry about last year. I just couldn't get out of that deal in New York. You know how it is."

Ezra shook his head and then absently wiped a bead of sweat off his right temple. "Right, I know." There was no bitterness, only fatigue in his words.

Monroe Foley looked at his son and heaved a deep sigh. They had been meeting once a year for a drink ever since Ezra had tracked him down ten years ago. It was becoming an old tradition, one that Monroe mostly observed with only half-hearted enthusiasm. Ezra, on the other hand, was still hoping to start a deeper relationship with his father.

But on some level, they had just never connected. Most likely never would, mused the older man with an absent shrug of one shoulder.

A man and his son shouldn't be so remote from each other. Hell, this meeting felt almost like that first year they met in a bar in Macon. They had said about ten words and then drank in silence until Monroe had to leave to catch a flight for his next business deal.

Silence descended over two like an insulating blanket that blocked them from the rest of the happiness in the Denver bar.

A sudden ring from Ezra's suit coat made Ezra's already shaking hand spill a little of his whiskey on the glossy bar top. "Damn." He put the glass down and dug for his phone.

He groaned when he saw the caller I.D. With his eyes closed, he answered the phone.

"Yes, Mr. Jackson? No, Mr. Jackson. I am not suicidal. You are correct, my mother wasn't married when I was born, but I take offence at 'low down' and 'dirty.' No. No. Are you hard of hearing, Mr. Jackson? It doesn't matter at the moment. Never mind. I don't need them, I'm perfectly fine."

Ezra sighed and bowed his head, pushing the bottom of the phone up until it was across his cheek. At this point in the team medic's rant, he need not participate. Nathan wouldn't let him get in a word anyway until he wound down.

"Trouble?" asked Monroe in a whisper with a raised eyebrow. He didn't know who this Mr. Jackson was, but it didn't sound good.

"No," murmured Ezra with his eyes still closed. "Just a persistent co-worker and a matter of my health, which is fine," Ezra said the last part with a raised voice so it could be heard over the phone.

The voice on the other end never slowed down.

"Maybe you should call it a night, son. You really don't look well and it seems that your co-worker isn't very happy with you." Maybe he could get this meeting over without the usual plea from Ezra. He could wrap this up early and maybe do a little side business before leaving Denver.

Ezra let a weary smile cross his lips. "True, but I refuse to be dictated to. I am a grown man." He shifted the phone back into position. "Mr. Jackson. Mr. Jackson! I am fine, so desist with your sermon. I am not on the medication, so it does not matter if I am in a bar."

Nathan's voice still buzzed loud enough from the slim phone for Monroe to catch every fifth word. They were loud and they were angry.

"No, I don't need a real sermon. Oh, do not put on Mr. Sanchez. Don't you dare . . . hello, Mr. Sanchez."

Monroe noticed a shift in body language. His son was no longer drooping on his barstool. His voice was softer and less antagonistic with this Mr. Sanchez.

"I appreciate that, Mr. Sanchez. Excuse me for saying so, but I did tell you I had an appointment tonight and I was at my limit with Mr. Jackson's brand of nursing."

A deep voice sounded over the phone and Ezra began to sink down against the bar again. His eyes still closed as he winced and put his left hand to his side.

Ezra heaved another sigh. "Okay," he said quietly. "You know where, the same as last year."

He hung up the phone with a snap and tucked it back into his coat, grimacing at the movement.

"Trouble?" asked Monroe as he swirled a bit of whiskey in his shot glass. He didn't really like the bystander feeling he had experienced during the phone call. This meeting was similar to all the others in the past, but tonight he felt even more distance between them.

This year, his son was preoccupied and not even offering up the usual pleading for more time with his father. That request was such a sure bet that Monroe already had his 'we lead separate lives in different cities' speech already worked out in his mind.

The older man felt slightly sulky at not being able to use it.

"Of course, they are always trouble," responded Ezra as he reached for another shot. "Since I have met up with them, my methods have been questioned, my morals derided and my name taken in vain."

Monroe cut his eyes from his glass to his son's face. The words . . . the words said 'I barely tolerate them' but the eyes said 'I enjoy every second.' The older man's sulk started to turn in to down right resentment.

It surprised him; he never wanted anything more than a once-a-year casual drinking buddy relationship with this son of Maude's. What just happened?

Some of the bar patrons suddenly broke out into a chorus of One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer with most of them holding up glasses as if to provide props for the song.

A few minutes later, there was a momentary lull in the revelry around them and Monroe Foley turned to look toward the door of the establishment. He sat down his glass before he could drop it. In the doorway were several tough looking characters.

Monroe knew tough in his line of business, and knew how to avoid getting in a mess with the truly 'bad' men in his field. He stayed alive longer that way. He was suddenly very glad he wasn't in Denver on a business trip. Forget the side business.

"Ah, I can tell by the silence that the gang's all here," slurred Ezra, his pain and the whiskey combining to slow his drawl down even more.

A big, bearded man with a long face stepped up first from the bunch as they straggled through the crowded tables. He put a large hand on Ezra's shoulder as he studied the pained man's pale face. "I see St. Patrick did indeed raise the dead tonight. Ezra, son, you shouldn't have left the ranch like that. Nathan's been on a campaign of terror ever since you didn't came back from the bathroom. We've hardly had the time to quench our mighty thirsts on this great holiday." The voice was serious but the eyes were clearly amused.

"Mr. Sanchez, one moment more of Mr. Jackson and I would have done something that either would have sent me to jail or to hell. I'm not sure which."

Monroe almost snarled at the big man as he started to feel invisible. Not just invisible, but unwanted. An intruder. And who was this man to call Ezra 'son?'

"Ezra!" yelled a younger man with dark hair that was almost in his eyes. He seemed to be wearing every shade of green offered by man and nature. "Thank god, Ezra! Please come back to the ranch and save us from Nathan! Hey, where's your green? You don't want to get pinched, do you?"

A taller man with a mustache poked the youngster in the side. "J.D., not now."

"Mr. Dunne, I always have green on hand. Or should I say, eye," said Ezra as he winked at the bouncing agent dressed in a green rainbow.

"Aw, that don't count, Ezra!"

Without a word, but clearly simmering with suppressed anger, an African-American man stepped up beside Sanchez and wordlessly grabbed Ezra by the arm.

"Mr. Jackson! I'm busy here."

The angry man didn't even look at the bottle or the glasses or even at Monroe. "One more word and you will be going to the hospital. Understood?"

Despite the harsh words, Mr. Sanchez and the angry man slowly and gently lifted Ezra from his seat to keep him steady until his lagging balance kicked in.

"Well, Mr. Foley, it looks as if our appointment is at an end." Green eyes rimmed in red peered at Monroe with a small amount of regret. Just a small amount. "I'll call you when you get back to New York to set up the next appointment."

Monroe nodded woodenly, wondering why Ezra was calling him by his last name in front of his co-workers. That was, until he remembered that he had told Ezra that first year that he wanted all this business between them to remain quiet. Monroe wasn't even sure if Maude knew they were meeting. "Sure, Ezra, you do that."

"You may help yourself to the left over libation. Please drink up the rest of the change. No use letting it go to waste because I have overbearing, mother henning, dictatorial associates."

"I'll-I'll see you next time, Ezra," muttered Monroe as Ezra was supported away from the bar by his two larger acquaintances.

The three of them were met in the middle of the room by the rest of the strange group. Most of them put a hand on his son's shoulder or forehead, checking him over like . . . as if . . . as a family would. There was some good-natured ribbing about jailbreaks and snakes being driven from Ireland.

Ezra wasn't alone like Monroe had previously thought. Maybe last year hadn't been so hard on his son when he had begged off from their yearly St. Patrick's Day meeting.

He stopped his musings when the tall blond man wearing black finally stopped the pawing and the bickering and herded the men to the door.

"You can't drive back to the ranch like this, Ezra," said the one called Mr. Sanchez.

A slim man with longer hair and stubble grinned. "'Ey, Ez, give me yer keys."

"Mr. Tanner, you will drive my car over my dead, staked and burned to ashes body."

The scruffy man just kept grinning as he patted a tipsy Ezra down and then danced away with the keys with a whoop.

"Hey, Vin, I'm coming with you!" yelled the one called J.D.

Most of the group was laughing, but Ezra was bitching about his car as they all swirled out of the bar and into the night.

Ezra left without even turning for a last look at his estranged father.

Monroe furrowed his brow and turned back to the bottle of whiskey.

Somehow, he had the feeling that his son was no longer going to plea for his free time. Not any more. Somehow that didn't please him as much as he had thought it would.

He was miserable.

END


End file.
